Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus, known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman writer, soldier and administrator of the early imperial period, belonging to the equestrian order. He is remembered above all for the Natural History, an encyclopedia that for centuries served as a reference for anyone who wanted to know about the natural world, geography and the customs of peoples. His method is not that of modern science, which relies on controlled observation and experiment, but the work marks an important moment in how knowledge was gathered and arranged.

He was born in Como, in Transpadane Gaul, around the year 23 or 24. His father, also of equestrian rank, sent him to Rome, where he received a broad education in grammar, rhetoric and law. Around the year 46, at about twenty-three, he began his military career in Germany under Corbulo, and took part in digging a canal between the Rhine and the Meuse. He became a cavalry commander before returning to Rome around 57 to devote himself to study. Under Emperor Vespasian he resumed public service, serving as procurator in Narbonese Gaul, Tarraconensian Spain and Belgian Gaul. In Spain he observed farming and mining at first hand. Later he was appointed commander of the Roman fleet at Misenum.

He wrote many works, most of which are lost. The best known is the Wars of Germany, a history of the campaigns against the Germans in twenty volumes, which other historians such as Tacitus, Suetonio and Plutarch probably drew on. He also composed a history of his own times, which he chose not to publish during his lifetime, partly to avoid being accused of flattery. The only surviving work is the Natural History, which he dedicated to the emperor Titus in 77. It covers astronomy, geography, zoology, botany, minerals, medicine and the arts, written from the viewpoint of a citizen of the Roman Empire who largely accepted the authority of the ancients.

His philosophy was essentially Stoic, though he was also influenced by Epicureanism, the Academy and Pythagoreanism. For him the divine is real and amounts to the soul of the world, but the existence of a providence seemed uncertain to him. He believed that faith in divine punishment of wrongdoing was healthy for society, and that virtue meant doing good for humankind. His outlook on life was gloomy: he lamented luxury, moral corruption and the decline of farming in Italy, and preferred the models of the Republic to his contemporaries.

He died in 79 at Stabiae, probably suffocated by volcanic gases, while trying to help friends and to observe the eruption of Vesuvius at close quarters. He was about fifty-six. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, described the events in two letters that have survived, and this is why the violent eruption with a tall eruption column is called a "Plinian eruption" in volcanology. His influence was vast: the Natural History was read, copied and consulted for more than a thousand years, and it is still regarded as a valuable source on ancient culture.